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Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, polymer optical fibers (POFs) have been proven to be an excellent alternative to the conventional silica fibers. As a result of its significant advantages, including high elastic strain limits, high fracture toughness, and high flexibility in bending, this technology has been increasingly applied in distinct fields, from structural health monitoring to environmental sensing. Additionally, the excellent compatibility of polymers with organic materials means there is great potential for biomedical applications.

This Special Issue will focus on the current state-of-the-art of polymer optical fiber, covering recent technological improvements from special fibers to new devices/sensors and emerging applications. Original research papers, short communications, and review articles describing the current state-of-the-art in this research field are welcome. We hope this SI will provide you with an overview of the present status and future outlook of the aforementioned topics.

Dr. Nélia Jordão Alberto
Dr. Paulo Sérgio de Brito André

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Keywords

Special polymer fibers (materials and structures)
Micro and nanostructures based on tapers, etched, and coated polymer fibers
Polymer based fiber Bragg gratings, Fabry–Perot cavities, Mach Zehnder interferometers, etc.
Plasmonic polymer fiber-based devices
Physical, mechanical, and electromagnetic sensors
Chemical, environmental, biological, and medical sensors
Sensor applications
Distributed sensing
Theoretical and simulation studies
Polymer fiber-based interrogation systems
Connectorization methods

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Polycarbonate mPOF-Based Mach–Zehnder Interferometer for Temperature and Strain Measurement

and

Sensors 2020, 20(22), 6643; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20226643 - 20 Nov 2020

Abstract

In this paper, an endlessly single mode microstructured polymer optical fiber (mPOF) in a Mach–Zehnder (M–Z) interferometer configuration is demonstrated for temperature and strain measurement. Because there is no commercial splicer applied for POF-silica optical fiber (SOF) connectorization, prior to the M–Z interferometric sensing, we introduce an imaging projecting method to align a polycarbonate mPOF to a SOF and then the splice is cured permanently using ultraviolet (UV) glue. A He-Ne laser beam at 632.8 nm coupled in a SOF is divided by a 1 × 2 fiber coupler to propagate in two fiber arms. A piece of mPOF is inserted in one arm for sensing implementation and the interference fringes are monitored by a camera. For non-annealed fiber, the temperature sensitivity is found to be 25.5 fringes/°C for increasing temperature and 20.6 fringes/°C for decreasing temperature. The converted sensitivity per unit length is 135.6 fringes/°C/m for increasing temperature, which is twice as much as the silica fiber, or 852.2 rad/°C/m (optical phase change versus fiber temperature), which is more than four times as much as that for the PMMA fiber. To solve the sensitivity disagreement, the fiber was annealed at 125 °C for 36 h. Just after the thermal treatment, the temperature measurement was conducted with sensitivities of 16.8 fringes/°C and 21.3 fringes/°C for increasing and decreasing process, respectively. One month after annealing, the linear response was improved showing a temperature sensitivity of ~20.7 fringes/°C in forward and reverse temperature measurement. For the strain measurement based on non-annealed fiber, the sensitivity was found to be ~1463 fringes/%ε showing repeatable linear response for forward and reverse strain. The fiber axial force sensitivity was calculated to be ~2886 fringes/N, showing a force measurement resolution of ~3.47 × 10⁻⁴ N. The sensing methodology adopted in this work shows several advantages, such as very low cost, high sensitivity, a straightforward sensing mechanism, and ease of fabrication. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymer Optical Fiber Sensors)

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